OneDrive doesn’t have the option to select folders from multiple disk drives – this wasn’t a problem for other online storage/synchronization tools that I have used previously, however OneDrive wants you to simply selection one “root” folder and it will only included files/folders beneath that.

I have a scenario where I have a 100GB SSD disk for frequently accessed files and a 1TB slower SATA disk for photos and archives. I have files and folders in both drives that I want to be synchronized to the OneDrive “Cloud”.

So to do this I needed to use the Windows command line tool MKLINK to create a symbolic link.

C:\Users\danovich\OneDrive\ <——- “Root” OneDrive folder, located on the 100GB SSD driveD:\Data\Photos\ <——- Photos folder, located on the 1TB SATA drive, containing 500GB of photos I want to be sync’d into OneDrive

Data will now be syncing with OneDrive and the “Photos” symbolic link, essentially a shortcut, will appear in the OneDrive folder:

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I had a scenario where I needed to upgrade from Windows 8.1 Enterprise to Windows 10 Professional using the free Microsoft upgrade via Windows Update. The free update usually doesn’t work on Enterprise versions of Windows 8.1. To get this to work:

Open a command prompt with Administrator rights and run 4 commands to update the registry:

This week I had a need to set up a RADIUS server in my lab. I decided to use an on-premise version of Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Server. It literally took just 5 minutes to set up and I was then receiving One-Time-Passwords via SMS for a measly sum of $0.17 (AU) per authentication. This is a very simple, flexible and impressive solution. More info and step-by-step instructions here:

Reviewing Microsoft 10 over the last week, I am very happy with the approach that Microsoft are taking with their ‘Windows Update Delivery Optimization’. In short, this is peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of Microsoft updates and Apps instead of content delivery directly from Microsoft servers. I like the concept behind this and I believe that this is an delivery method that we’ll start to see more of from other Internet-based software and service providers in the coming years.

The main concepts behind this are:

WUDO lets you get Windows updates and Windows Store apps from sources in addition to Microsoft.

Windows doesn’t download the entire file from one place. Instead, the download is broken down into smaller parts. Windows uses the fastest, most reliable download source for each part of the file.

WUDO creates a local cache, and stores files that it has downloaded in that cache for a short period of time. Depending on the settings, Windows then send parts of those files to other PCs on the local network or PCs on the Internet that are downloading the same files.

Delivery Optimization is turned on by default for all editions of Windows 10 (an opt-out scenario as opposed to opt-in), with the following differences:

Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Education: The PCs on your local network option is turned on by default.

All other editions of Windows 10: The PCs on your local network and PCs on the Internet option is turned on by default.

Users can turn this feature on and off, and can also set whether they can get and send updates to either just PCs on their local network or to PCs on the Internet as well.

There isn’t any detailed technical information available from Microsoft on how this works so one can only assume that it may be a larger implementation of Microsoft’s SCCM BranchCache concept.

As we all know, as of July 14 2015, Windows Server 2003 will no longer be a supported operating system. This means that customers using Windows Server 2003 will no longer receive new security updates, non-security updates, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates from Microsoft.

However, it isn’t that well publicised that on this same date, customers using System Center Endpoint Protection on Windows Server 2003 will stop receiving updates to antimalware definitions and the engine for Windows Server 2003.

As a result, the SCEP agent will stop functioning. Starting on July 14 2015, systems running Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that have the System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection client installed will receive the following system tray notification:

This purpose of this post is to highlight another reason we need to keep Domain Controllers physically secure – in fact the principle here also applies to standard Windows Servers too.

My home test lab had been powered down for a few months and I’d forgotten my Domain Administrator password. I knew there was a method to log onto a Windows Server without a username and password back in Windows Server 2003 and I thought that surely this still wouldn’t work with Windows Server 2012 R2 – however to my horror it still did. Here is how I reset my Domain Administrator account password – scary stuff!

Forgotten passwordForgotten password

So I’d forgotten my Domain Administrator password. Time to attach the Windows Server 2012 R2 ISO to the VM.

Attach ISO

Adjust the boot order to force booting from ISO first.

Boot to DVD/ISO

Restart the VM and boot to the DVD/ISO. Click Next on the first setup screen. On the following screen make sure you select “Repair your computer”.

NextRepair your computer

Then click on “Troubleshoot” followed by “Command Prompt”

TroubleshootCommand Prompt

You will now be presented with a Command Prompt. Change your directory to c:\Windows\System32. Then rename the Utilman.exe executable by running the command “ren Utilman.exe Utilman.exe.old”. Then make a copy of cmd.exe named Utilman.exe using the command “copy cmd.exe Utilman.exe”. See below screenshot.

Replace Utilman

Close the command prompt and restart the machine, booting back into the regular Windows logon screen. Once the logon screen is presented, press the “Windows Key” and “U”. Much to your horror you will see a Command Prompt appear. If you check Task Manager, you will see that the Command Prompt (executable called Utilman.exe) is running in the SYSTEM context. Given that this is a Domain Controller, effectively this mean the commands run within the Command Prompt are executed with the Domain Admin permission level.

SYSTEM context

To reset the Domain Administrator account password, we simply need to run the “net user Administrator password” command.

Reset password

You can now close the Command Prompt and log onto the domain with the Administrator account and the newly set password.

I have also seen this work with the Sticky Keys executable (sethc.exe) being replaced instead of Utilman.exe.

Once again this highlights why we need to keep our Domain Controllers physically secure – from this demo you can see that anyone with physical access to the server can have control over your entire Active Directory domain in a very short amount of time!